Prayer for the Day

by Revd Canon David White

15th March 2026 - Mothering Sunday

God our Mother
Living Water,
River if Mercy,
Source of Life,
in whom we live and move and have our being,
who quenches our thirst, refreshes our weariness,
bathes and washes and cleanses our wounds,
be for us always a fountain of life,
for all the world a river of hope
springing up in the midst
of the deserts of despair.  Amen.

‘Do remember, they can’t cancel the spring’ was coined by the artist David Hockney in 2020 during the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic. He self-isolated in Normandy where he spent his time working on iPad paintings showing the gradual transformation of the landscape by the arrival of spring.

This Sunday is Mothering Sunday. Churches and families give thanks for their mothers and for their love and care. For those who have not been able to grow up experiencing a mother’s love and care, perhaps they will give thanks for those who have acted as a mother for them in their lives.

This prayer encapsulates all that a mother is concerned with in our lives and is offered to God as our Mother. It was written by Miriam Therese Winter a Roman Catholic Mission sister, theologian and song writer. It reminds us that God is the creator and sustains of the life he gives.

Mothering Sunday always falls in the spring and this year it comes at a time when the world is such a disturbing and unsettling place. If, like me, you’ve been reading or watching the news of late with some alarm, unsure of what will happen next, then to know that God loves and cares for us with the constancy of a mother is reassuring and gives hope. And of course, ‘do remember, they can’t cancel the spring’.